how to safely deploy npm install without it causing inconsistencies

Question

The npm install/ update is causing me problems when deploying them. I am using angular. Firstly, npm install is a stateful operation and depends entirely upon the latest version of dependencies, when the command is executed. The problem is that package.json doesn't indicate a specific version  instead gives the ranges of versions.

Now, this in turn makes things difficult whenever I run npm update or use ncu, because then I have to deal with the inconsistencies between the modules.

Is there any way to have a package.json file that tells me exactly the state of installed packages rather than ranges?

Answer 1

The recent versions on npm generates a package-lock.json file. It keeps the exact version of any package when it was first installed. So whenever you call npm install, it will fetch and install those versions.

Also it is good practice to add these files to your repo, therefore, if anyone is cloning it will get the same dependencies installed.

Here are the npm docs